EU court adviser rejects Mastercard's appeal on card fees

An employee stands behind a MasterCard logo during the launch of the international credit card issuer's first ATM transaction in Myanmar, in Yangon November 15, 2012.REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - An adviser to Europe’s top court rejected on Thursday an appeal by MasterCard (MA.N) against a European Union ban on its cross-border card fees.

“I propose that the court should dismiss the main appeal and the cross appeals,” Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi said in his opinion.

Judges at the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice, who follow the advisers’ recommendations in the majority of cases, will rule in the coming months.

The European Commission had said that MasterCard’s cross-border multilateral interchange fee, levied on retailers’ credit and debit card transactions, violated EU antitrust rules and had to be changed.